THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL
OCTOBER 6, 1936
OH MO! DYNAMOS ADD LEGENDARY SLUGGER
The Detroit Dynamos have given there fans a reason to show up at the ballpark next season as they added the greatest slugger in baseball history to their roster. Max Morris, who suffered a foot injury that cost him half of the season, had his lowest homerun total since 1918 but still managed to surpass the 700 mark for his career. He will be 42 when opening day rolls around again and there is a slight chance Morris may choose to retire instead, taking his 702 career homeruns, three triple crowns, 8 Whitney Awards and 2 World Championship rings, and ride off into the sunset. However, if he does choose to return he will give Detroit fans, who have watched their club go 98-210 over the past two seasons, something to finally cheer for.
Morris will likely not have a great impact on improving that record, at least not on the field but just his presence should help many of the young Dynamos mature as big leaguers. Morris, in all honesty, was merely a throw in the deal that sent outfielder Leon Drake from the south shores of Lake Erie to Lake St Clair. Drake hit .279 with 21 homers and a CA leading 21 triples for Cleveland last season and he will be reunited with his former GM, who left Cleveland for the rebuilding project that is the Dynamos two years ago. In return Cleveland gets Bill Moore, a 25 year old first baseman who once was called the greatest player in College Baseball History but did not make his FABL debut until this past season. He acquainted himself well in the big leagues, batting .327 with 9 homers as a rookie and will be counted on to fill Morris' large shoes at first base with the Foresters. Cleveland also gets a promising but injury prone minor league pitcher in Earle Robinson who was originally selected 5th overall by Brooklyn in the 1933 draft, and a 4th round draft pick.
It was one of two deals announced by the Dynamos who also picked up catcher Clem Bliss from Pittsburgh for a pair of minor leaguers. It was not much of secret recently but the Dynamos also made official they will be taking Sal Pestilli with the number one pick in this December's draft. The final piece of news out of Detroit is that the Dynamos are about to fire beleaguered manager Tom Bray. They have not made the name of his replacement public yet but inside sources confirm it will be a legend in the sport.
WHAT WENT WRONG IN BROOKLYN THIS TIME?
Another season ends in disappointment for the Brooklyn Kings but at least this time there was some cause for celebration. After blowing two straight pennant races to the Cleveland Foresters the Kings finally got over the hump this time around and claimed their first Continental Association pennant since 1927. However the club remains the only FABL team never to win a World Championship Series as the Kings were swept by the red-hot Chicago Chiefs and are now 0 for 4 attempts to win a World Title while owning a dismal 3-16 record in post-season play.
You can't blame this loss on the Curse of Ferdinand Hawkins, although I am certain his presence still lingers in the halls of Kings County Stadium over a year after his death and 45 years after Hawkins supposedly doomed the Kings to never winning a World Championship Series after he was released by the club following the inaugural season of FABL in 1892. The September failures of the past three years certainly seem otherworldly in Brooklyn when you consider the collapses the Kings had each season.
1934- Brooklyn won a team record 97 games but with 6 to play they lead the second place Cleveland Foresters by 2.5 games only to drop 4 of their final 6 and lose the pennant by a single game.
1935- A 95 win season ends in bitter disappointment as the Kings lost 4 of their last 7 contests including the final two on the season ending weekend. The last game is known as the Barrell debacle when Tom Barrell, despite being on the verge of his second straight Allen Award, comes up with one of his worst outings of the season with the pennant on the line and gets blown out in a season ending loss to the New York Stars that allows Cleveland to again win the pennant by a single game.
1936- This season the Kings again set a franchise record for victories with 98 but they were below .500 after the beginning of September posting a 13-16 record including the 4 series defeats. Brooklyn was lucky to hold off the hard-charging Philadelphia Sailors to finally win the pennant, and the door was certainly open for Cleveland to make another comeback win but they stumbled down the stretch as well for a change.
There are slumps that every ballclub goes through but Brooklyn seems to be hit with them at the most inopportune time. It's almost like this team is....well, cursed.
The players have to shoulder much of the blame for failing to perform in a key situation once again, but they are not the only guilty party in this case. Kings management is also heavily to blame. One can trace this lost opportunity to the middle of July when the Kings management team failed to go all-in and try to pry Rabbit Day from the Gothams, who were selling off everything that wasn't bolted down. How different might things be for Brooklyn if the Kings had offered New York say Bob Cummings, their first round pick and a young prospect or two for the two-time (and soon to be three time) Allen Award winning pitcher. All Day did was go 17-1 down the stretch as Chicago became the hottest team since, well since Brooklyn in the first half of the season, and embarrassed the Brooklyn hitters in the World Championship Series. As a team the Kings hit .187 in the Series. This was the best offense in baseball that scored nearly 1,000 runs this season, averaging 6.5 runs per game but they could only score 5 times in the first 3 games of the Series combined. Add in 11 errors in the Series and you don't have a winning recipe especially when Chicago is sending Rabbit Day and Al Miller to the mound for 3 of the 4 games.
So you can blame it on the Curse if you like, or bad luck as the Brooklyn bats all cooled off at the same time but you and I know better. This season was lost the day the Brooklyn Kings management team got gun shy and backed off on a major deal for Rabbit Day. They pulled the trigger on such a deal the previous season to land Al Wheeler and Frank Vance and it got them nothing so I am sure that was a factor. They also learned before the deal was done that their competition for Day was not the Cleveland Foresters, so the Kings brain trust breathed a sigh of relief and decided to stand pat with the team they had and keep the few prospects remaining after two years of stocking up on veterans. The safe move if you will. Well the safe move is why Brooklyn is not celebrating a championship today, the curse has nothing to do with it.